Month: January 2024
White House calls for legislation to stop Taylor Swift AI fakes
Legislation needs to be passed to protect people from fake sexual images generated by AI, the White House said this afternoon. The statement, from White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, came in response to a question about the spread of fake sexualized photos of Taylor Swift on social media this…
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Fossil is quitting smartwatches
Fossil Group has decided to call it quits on smartwatches. The company announced this afternoon that it would leave the smartwatch business and redirect resources to its less-smart goods instead. The company has been one of the most prolific makers of Wear OS smartwatches over the years, and its absence…
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Spotify accuses Apple of ‘extortion’ with new App Store tax
Spotify — one of Apple’s biggest critics — says Apple’s new plan to comply with the European Union’s tech regulations is “a complete and total farce.” In a post published on Spotify’s website, the company calls Apple’s new app installation fee “extortion, plain and simple” and says Apple is trying…
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Google’s impressive Lumiere shows us the future of making short-form AI videos
Google is taking another crack at text-to-video generation with Lumiere, a new AI model capable of creating surprisingly high-quality content. The tech giant has certainly come a long way from the days of Imagen Video. Subjects in Lumiere videos are no longer these nightmarish creatures with melting faces. Now things…
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The seven dirty words you can’t say with AI
Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in! I’ll be writing today’s Insider edition of Hot Pod while Ariel Shapiro is getting some R&R in sunny Puerto Rico with her family (meanwhile, it’s been an uncharacteristically rainy and gray week here in Los Angeles). For today’s…
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Beeper’s push for iMessage on Android is really over
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Beeper announced it’s removing the Beeper Mini app from the Google Play Store and moving the iMessage bridge to the “Labs” section of its cloud version. No new users will be able to use Beeper Cloud to gain entry into Apple’s messaging service,…
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